Literary Response to Crisis Elements of Analytic Autoethnography in Tawada Yôkos After Fukushima. Journal of Trembling Days

The purpose of this essay is to propose a response to the following questions: can a sociologist make use of literature? And if so, under what conditions may a literary work be of use to sociologists? The answer to the question will be formulated through an analysis of After Fukushima. Journal of Trembling Days, a literary work by Tawada Yôko, an exophonic Japanese writer living in Germany. The analysis will be conducted in the framework of the paradigm of analytic autoethnography, which formulates three conditions for field notes to be considered as autoethnographic: (1) the author-researcher must be a full member in the research group or setting, (2) visible as such a member in the researchers published text, and (3) committed to an analytic research agenda focused on improving theoretical understandings of broader social phenomena. The following hermeneutic approach to the selected literary work will cover all three issues.